


A Vampire's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Werewolves

by arabmorgan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood and Violence, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24983056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: All Yeosang wanted to do was to live a peaceful, secluded life in his little cottage in the middle of the forest, but the werewolf he caught digging up his beloved vegetable garden had very different plans.
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 65
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we go. The obligatory vampire fic ୧☉□☉୨

Yeosang hadn’t laid eyes on a werewolf in close to a decade, so to see one right outside his window digging up his beloved vegetable garden with its big, dirty paws was a nasty surprise, to say the least.

He had almost thought it was a bad dream at first. To interrupt a vampire’s afternoon nap was, after all, widely considered to be the height of discourtesy. In fact, he was so discombobulated by the shocking sight that he ventured out of his cottage without even donning his stylishly wide-brimmed sun hat, a decision which his tender undead skin immediately began to protest beneath the scorching rays of the afternoon sun.

“Hey!” he shrieked, which was a fair bit louder than he had spoken in about as long as his life had been devoid of werewolves. “There’s a whole forest here and you _have_ to dig in my garden? Get out of here!”

The wolf, the tips of its silver coat stained dark with dirt, immediately lifted its head and stared right at him, its amber eyes bright with amusement and not a hint of repentance. It wasn’t particularly big, being just about eye level with Yeosang, but its lean frame was that of a young adult rather than a growing pup, which really made the whole garden-digging fiasco that much more ridiculous.

“I’m serious,” Yeosang threatened, scanning the trampled mess of his lovingly-planted carrots and cabbages with a note of despair in his voice. “I’m supposed to sell these at the market, you big lug. Where did you even come from? Get _out_ of my garden!”

Standing right at the edge of the dirt plot, Yeosang glared at the grinning werewolf, now watching him with its head cocked to the side like it thought it was cute. Truthfully, Yeosang was usually the last person who might be given to outbursts of emotion, but then it wasn’t every day that some idiot came around to ruin his pride and joy either. He counted to three in his head, and when the werewolf showed no signs of leaving, he lunged right across his cabbages with his arms outstretched, fangs bared in annoyance.

The reaction was instantaneous. The wolf yelped and flinched away, hindlegs digging into the dirt as it tried to scramble out of reach, but there was no werewolf that could match a vampire’s speed over short distances. Yeosang grunted in triumph as he slung an arm over the wolf’s neck and flipped it onto its back with all the finesse of a professional wrestler, leaving it whining and squirming pitifully in his grip.

“Shift back,” Yeosang snarled, doubly annoyed at the faint blistering pain of a sunburn already developing on the back of his neck. “Shift back or I swear I’ll pull all your fur out. I can do it. You know I can.”

The werewolf made another weak effort to escape, its legs cycling futilely in the air, but Yeosang’s arm was half buried in the thick fur beneath its throat in an unbreakable headlock. Finally, it went limp, a loud huff of defeat escaping through its nose, and quite suddenly, with the grotesque echo of snapping bones and realigning flesh echoing in his ears, Yeosang found himself holding on to a very naked man with a shock of silver hair.

Letting go as if he had been burnt, Yeosang hastily stepped back, already beginning to regret even leaving his cottage at all. No matter what Hongjoong said, Yeosang was certainly not a hermit – he just didn’t quite _relish_ the burden of social interaction in the same way other people did. The weekly market day in town was about as much conversation as he could deal with on a regular basis, and this unclothed, uninvited stranger on his land was really one step too far for his sensibilities.

Shaking himself in an oddly dog-like manner, the werewolf turned around to face Yeosang with a wide-eyed pout on his face. “That was mean. You didn’t have to flip me so hard,” he said, with his bottom lip jutting out and his brows furrowed, as if _Yeosang_ was the one who had committed a crime against him.

“You dug up half my damn garden,” Yeosang spluttered, almost speechless with disbelief at the sheer nerve of this guy. “You deserved that flip.”

“I didn’t mean to,” the werewolf insisted, as if that really mattered to Yeosang at all when it looked like a localised earthquake had gone through his garden. “There’s just something about digging in soft dirt, you know? It’s kinder on the paws.” He smiled hopefully, a quick brightening of his face that faded slightly in the face of Yeosang’s disgust.

“Come on, it’s not like you even eat vegetables,” he mumbled, looking down and flicking at the dirt with his bare toes like a chastised child. Right then, Yeosang was quite tempted to sock him in the face, except that he was already having a hard enough time keeping his glare fixed on the stranger’s face rather than wandering any lower. There was, after all, a lot of bare skin being exposed right in front of him.

“Like I said,” he hissed, drawing himself up to his full height, “I sell them at the market, and if you don’t help me to put everything right where it should be, I’ll wring your scrawny neck. And for the love of all the gods, could you _please_ put on some clothes?”

The werewolf huffed, wrinkling his nose as he eyed Yeosang critically. “You’re pretty grumpy, aren’t you?”

That was more than Yeosang could take. He was definitely going to peel after being out in the sun for so long, his afternoon nap had been interrupted, and he had completely run out of patience with this obnoxious, naked werewolf who was so shamelessly trespassing on his property. Spinning around without another word, he marched back to his cottage, slamming the door behind him.

At least, he tried to. For some reason, the werewolf had followed him all the way to his front door, grinning like an excited puppy as he tried to peek around Yeosang into _his_ home.

“What are you _doing_?” It wasn’t exactly a screech, but it wasn’t too far off either.

The werewolf blinked innocently. “I thought you were going to lend me some clothes so that we could start fixing your vegetables,” he said, with so much earnestness that Yeosang couldn’t help wondering momentarily if he had been dropped on his head as a puppy. Surely he had to be putting on an act? Surely no one was this relentlessly _cheerful_ after destroying private property?

But it had been a long time since Yeosang had felt intense anger, or any other extreme emotion for that matter – most things started to seem pretty unworthy of strong feelings once he’d lived a century or so – and he felt more like sighing than raging the longer he stared at his unwanted guest.

“Fine,” he said at last, tiredly. “But you can’t come in. You have soil all over your feet. Just…wait here, I guess.” He had, after all, brought this very unfortunate situation upon himself by demanding help from this rather infuriating werewolf.

“Sure!” The werewolf was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in excitement, although excitement for what exactly Yeosang had no idea, and had very little desire to find out. “I’m Wooyoung, by the way.”

Yeosang frowned at that unwanted piece of information, but felt unfortunately compelled to respond out of politeness. “Right, I’m Yeosang,” he said shortly, and then hurried off before he could be dragged into another pointless conversation that he really wasn’t in the mood for.

Thankfully, he and Wooyoung were just about the same size, so he had little trouble finding a spare set of clothes for the werewolf, although Wooyoung didn’t seem particularly interested in the shirt. He seemed more keen on eyeing Yeosang instead, his gaze trailing down the long-sleeved shirt protecting his arms and the sun hat so wide it almost made it difficult for him to leave the house with it on his head.

“Are you sure you want to go out in this weather?” he asked dubiously, squinting up at the sky pointedly like he thought Yeosang might be blind. “It’s kind of sunny out here. Shouldn’t you be napping?” He smiled guilelessly as he hopped about with only one leg in his pants, right in front of Yeosang’s scandalised eyes.

Yeosang genuinely felt like his head was about to explode from annoyance. “I _would_ have been napping if someone hadn’t ruined my garden,” he snapped resentfully, because it was in fact true – he _was_ starting to feel the extreme midday lethargy that forced the vampiric tradition of sacred, undisturbed afternoon naps. Working on his mess of a vegetable plot was just about the last thing he actually wanted to do right then.

Digging and planting in the dead of night however, with just the cool light of the moon streaming down on him, the tenderly-tilled soil crumbling between his gloved fingers, the calm centredness of solitude – now that was a different matter altogether.

For the first time, a flash of embarrassment crossed Wooyoung’s face, seeming to finally realise the consequences of his actions. “Look, you don’t have to come out here with me,” he said, and it was thoroughly annoying how the sincerity that laced his tone made him sound like the absolute voice of reason. “Your garden isn’t that big. I can handle it on my own while you nap.”

Yeosang scowled suspiciously. “Are you sure you won’t just start digging again?”

The pout of the unfairly accused immediately returned to Wooyoung’s face, an expression that made Yeosang want to cringe and escape to the next country. “I won’t, I promise,” he said promptly. “I just got excited earlier, that’s all. I’ll keep myself under control.” He beamed, clasping his hands together pleadingly, and he looked so much like the hopeful children who came by Yeosang’s doorstep on All Hallows' Eve that he simply couldn’t help relenting.

“Fine,” he said, heaving a sigh. “There’s a basket around the corner there, along with the other gardening tools. Don’t bother trying to replant anything if you don’t know how to. Just help me collect all the vegetables you dug up and I’ll sort the rest out tonight.”

After all, it hardly made any difference to him if Wooyoung just ran off without even touching his garden; there was no turning back the clock when it came to his dearly departed vegetables.

“You can count on me!” Wooyoung said brightly, and Yeosang promptly shut the door in his face when the werewolf winked playfully at him. _Winked_. And with him still topless and all. The situation was just so absurd that Yeosang was still shaking his head in vague confusion when he finally crawled into bed, his eyelids drooping. He fell asleep in less than a minute flat, his breaths gradually evening out until they finally stopped completely.

The next time he breathed again, it wasn’t quite dark yet, but the sun had already set. Yeosang blinked and sat up, instantly awake. There was no prickle of unease running up his spine, but there was definitely something odd in the air that he wasn’t accustomed to. That something, he soon discovered, was the distinct scent of soil that had been tracked into his house by a werewolf he had almost completely forgotten about after the dead serenity of his nap.

Swinging his feet over the side of his bed, he hissed and jerked backwards in surprise when his soles came into contact with a thousand pounds of warm, furry werewolf. Peeking over, he found Wooyoung asleep right by his bed, of all places, curled up with his head on his paws and his sides moving faintly with every breath. The wolf was, admittedly, a damn sight cuter when he wasn’t paw-deep in soil and grinning insolently, and Yeosang had to make a conscious effort to keep his hands to himself as he leapt nimbly off his bed.

Cute or not, however, Yeosang’s fragile tolerance of his home invader faded quite swiftly within the next minute. There was a basket of assorted vegetables sitting on his table, true, along with his gardening tools laid out to dry after washing – he didn’t know why Wooyoung would decide that the dining table was the right place to dry tools, but that was, at least, forgivable. What was _quite_ unforgivable were the dirt tracks tramping all about his house, from the door to the sink, and then a general muddle of dirt where Wooyoung must have paused to shift forms, before trailing all the way to his bed.

If Yeosang’s heart still pumped its own blood, he was fairly sure that his blood pressure would have been sky-high right then.

He stared at the clumps of soil littering his floor for a long moment, wavering between grabbing a broom and just leaving the cottage to fester in filth. Finally, he sighed in exasperation and stomped out of the door. He would make Wooyoung clean every single speck up in the morning even if it was the last thing he did, and then that big lug really had to go. Yeosang would say that the werewolf had outstayed his welcome, but there had never been a welcome laid out for him in the first place.

The lingering heat of the sun was already fading as Yeosang stepped off his porch and onto the grass, the cooler air soothing the tension tightening his shoulders. He stopped by his garden momentarily, almost dreading what he might see, but the small plot was once again neatly planted, the freshly-turned soil rich and dark.

“Damn wolf,” he muttered with grudging admiration, his amusement visible only in the faintest upward curl of his lip. Maybe Wooyoung wasn’t completely hopeless after all.

Moving off deeper into the forest, he was just kneeling to check his third trap when he heard the unmistakable crashing of something large moving through the trees towards him. The sound was distant but closing quickly, and Yeosang straightened, neck snapping about to face the noise. He had a nagging suspicion that the ruckus was caused by a certain over-enthusiastic werewolf, but it didn’t do to take chances in such a secluded area.

Sure enough, Wooyoung came bounding into view less than a minute later. His eyes were bright with glee when they landed on Yeosang, his fur gleaming among the dappled shadows thrown by the leaves overhead.

“I thought you’d still be sleeping,” Yeosang said dryly, moving away quickly as Wooyoung approached, just in case the werewolf tried to give him an undignified lick on the face or something equally horrible. Somehow managing to look petulant even with a canine visage, Wooyoung huffed at his avoidance and sat back on his haunches. His large frame began to twist painfully as he shifted forms, a sight that Yeosang honestly didn’t think he’d ever get used to.

“You left me alone,” was the first thing Wooyoung said the moment he had a functioning mouth. He frowned accusingly at Yeosang, who for a moment was rendered quite speechless by the absurdity of the statement.

“I left you alone?” he repeated, baffled. “You were in _my_ home. I was obviously going to come back eventually. Did you think I’d scarpered for good just because you dug up my garden?”

Wooyoung laughed, and Yeosang felt vague whiplash from the way the werewolf’s mood appeared to shift like the wind. “As if you’d let me take over your cute little cottage,” he snorted, and Yeosang had to admit the truth of that statement.

Quite abruptly, Wooyoung seemed to lose interest in the question of whether or not Yeosang had committed a grievous wrong against him by leaving him to sleep alone. Instead, his eyes zeroed in on the rabbit slung over Yeosang’s shoulder, and the vampire could almost see the moment Wooyoung’s mouth started watering. He was, unfortunately, once again extremely naked as he hastened over curiously, and Yeosang felt oddly threatened by Wooyoung’s rather flagrant nudity.

“Don’t you ever wear clothes?” he asked mildly, resisting the urge to take another step back. He had retreated quite enough in the face of this insolent werewolf.

Wooyoung’s gaze flicked over to meet Yeosang’s, his teeth flashing in a grin. “I do if they’re someone else’s,” he said with a laugh that made Yeosang twitch slightly, and then he shrugged. “But seriously, I hate having to carry clothes around, and they don’t smell so good after you’ve been running all day anyway.”

Yeosang made a noncommittal noise in his throat. “Good to know,” he murmured, and then he turned around to continue on his intended path, but the sound of Wooyoung tramping after him made him pause. “Are you going to keep following me?”

“Should I not?” Wooyoung looked so honestly confused that Yeosang found he didn’t quite have the heart to chase this strange interloper away after all. He _had_ made amends for the garden, even if he didn’t seem useful for much else.

Letting out a tiny sigh through his nose, Yeosang asked quite bluntly, “What about your pack?”

The way Wooyoung’s face brightened at that told Yeosang that he had made a terrible mistake, and that he was in for a very long, most likely one-sided conversation for at least the next ten minutes.

“My family’s actually from Seoul,” Wooyoung started, looking quite ready to begin reciting his autobiography and probably scaring off everything within a mile-wide radius of the two of them at the same time. “But I’m on like, a sabbatical, you know? Trying to discover myself, find inner peace and all that. I figured just exploring the country would be great. It’s been tons of fun so far.”

Yeosang wasn’t sure if it was actually possible to take a sabbatical from _family_ , and he couldn’t say that Wooyoung’s quest for inner peace was showing much success right then, but he supposed he did understand in a way. Deciding to live in the middle of the forest was pretty much his own way of taking a very extended sabbatical from the rest of the world, although he had definitely been much closer to inner peace before meeting Wooyoung.

Squinting dubiously at the werewolf, Yeosang said slowly, “How old are you anyway? You can’t be a pup if you’re running around by yourself, but you look a bit young for a mid-life crisis. Are you even fifty?”

Wooyoung’s eyes shot wide in indignation. “Of course I’m past fifty!” he cried, so shocked that he stopped right in his tracks for a moment before having to jog to catch up with Yeosang. “Just because I’m not a thousand years old like you doesn’t mean I’m not all grown up.”

This time it was Yeosang who paused, his nose wrinkling slightly as he turned to eye Wooyoung in faint disbelief. “Rude,” he said dryly. “I’m only a little past a hundred.”

Wooyoung blinked, a look of horrible fascination spreading across his face that made Yeosang walk off immediately in the vain hopes of avoiding whatever might next come out of Wooyoung’s mouth.

“Wow,” the werewolf said in amazement, his strides lengthening to keep up with Yeosang’s brisk pace. “You’re basically a baby vampire! That’s _so_ cute.” He grabbed on to Yeosang’s arm with a suddenness that made him hiss, but Wooyoung was too busy cooing and making a general nuisance of himself to register Yeosang’s flinch at all.

“I am not a _baby_ vampire,” Yeosang grumbled, disgust dripping from every syllable. “There are no baby vampires.” He glared at Wooyoung, painfully conscious of the way the other’s naked form was pressed against him, but for someone who had just met Yeosang less than twenty-four hours ago, the werewolf seemed curiously immune to the annoyance in his tone. It was really quite infuriating.

It was near midnight by the time they looped back into Yeosang’s actual territory, with Wooyoung still hanging on to Yeosang like a particularly stubborn leech. He was quiet now though, still moving along at a good pace by the vampire’s side, but the slight bleariness of his eyes showed quite clearly that he was getting sleepy. Yeosang couldn’t help peeking over for just a moment to check on Wooyoung’s condition, only for the werewolf to meet his eyes and give him a hopeful smile.

It was almost endearing, but only almost.

“You need to sleep,” Yeosang said shortly, as his cottage came into view, a somewhat ominous shadow looming out of the dark to any stranger in the area.

Letting out a loud yawn right by his ear, Wooyoung huffed in protest. “But I’m hungry,” he whined, and Yeosang took a brief moment to wonder about the sheer nerve of this werewolf who walked into a house that wasn’t his and expected to be _fed_.

Wooyoung poked at the brace of rabbits Yeosang was carrying. “Besides, it’s not like you even eat the meat,” he pointed out, in exactly the same tone he had used when talking about Yeosang’s vegetables – the one that suggested he was quite shamelessly accustomed to getting away with anything and everything.

“I _sell_ them, you dimwit,” Yeosang said flatly, but even he could tell that it was a losing battle. “And I need to drain them before you can touch them. If my house is clean – and _you’re_ clean – by the time I finish with these rabbits, you can have one.”

With a triumphant cheer, Wooyoung flung himself away from Yeosang and through the front door, yelling something over his shoulder about trusting in his exceptional tidying skills. Yeosang stared after him, feeling an odd, and yet not wholly unpleasant, weight settle upon his shoulders – a strange sort of permanence that he hadn’t felt in someone else’s presence in a long time, a resigned ‘ _so I guess this guy is going to be sticking around_ ’ that he didn’t exactly hate.

Well, not yet anyway.

As it turned out, Wooyoung was a surprisingly good cook despite his flightiness. Yeosang almost smiled at the look of delight on the other’s face as he set his fragrantly roasted rabbit down on the table with blissful reverence. This tolerant amusement was, however, quite swiftly destroyed the moment Wooyoung opened his mouth.

“Your stove looks like it hasn’t been used in decades,” Wooyoung mumbled as he sat down, at a volume that could perhaps have been considered under his breath by humans, but was very much audible to Yeosang. “I swear there were spiders the size of my fist in there. _Mutant_ spiders.”

“It hasn’t,” Yeosang said simply. “Been used in decades, I mean.” He blinked at Wooyoung inscrutably, watching the sudden realisation slam into Wooyoung’s expression the moment his eyes landed on the mug in Yeosang’s hand, half-full of fresh rabbit blood. His mouth rounded into an ‘o’ of comical surprise, before he suddenly giggled, high-pitched and flustered.

The sound was so unexpected that Yeosang’s head cocked slightly out of reflex, the corners of his lips loosening and tilting upwards. He hadn’t imagined that Wooyoung might have such a side to him, when his seemingly-endless well of confidence fell away and was replaced by wide-eyed embarrassment instead. The sight removed his somewhat cruel desire to continue mocking the werewolf, and he let out a small chuckle of his own instead.

“I gather you haven’t known many vampires,” he said off-handedly, his gaze tracing across the faint, faint heat spread across Wooyoung’s cheeks, visible even in the dim light to his vampiric eyes. Obnoxiousness aside, Wooyoung really was rather nice-looking, he thought quite clinically. But then of course, vampires were well-known to be partial towards blushing mortals – visible blood was always beautifully enticing.

Wooyoung laughed, a fuller sound this time as he took Yeosang’s offered lifeline gratefully. “Not really,” he admitted. “I mean, everyone knows the basics, like the whole getting sunburned thing, but you’re the only vampire I’ve met up close. You guys are all so…elusive. Do vampires only prefer to associate with each other or just not associate with anyone at all?” He waved a hand in the air vaguely, seeming to indicate the obvious isolation of Yeosang’s cottage.

Yeosang snorted at that, just a little bittersweet as he watched Wooyoung dig into the meat with gusto. “No, we just don’t like associating with big, horrible werewolves who enjoy ruining private property,” he shot back.

The truth was that vampires kept largely to themselves because no matter what, there would always be people who were not fully comfortable around beings who survived solely on a diet of blood. After living for long enough, most vampires ended up preferring to keep a low profile rather than live an immortal life full of strife and hostility. Yeosang, of course, had taken it one step further and moved himself completely out of range of most other sentient living things. Even alive, he had found most company infinitely tiring and decided quite early on that he would really rather avoid all that mess now that he was undead.

“You’re mean,” Wooyoung complained half-heartedly around a mouthful of rabbit, and Yeosang rolled his eyes.

“You say that,” he said, deadpan, “while eating a rabbit _I_ trapped, sitting in _my_ home, about to go to sleep in _my_ bed. Say it again, Wooyoung, I dare you.”

Wooyoung sucked in a breath, looking ready to retort, and then promptly deflated like a punctured balloon. “You sound like my mother,” he said grumpily as he wrinkled his nose sullenly at Yeosang, who smirked right back. His neck was flushed dully, the sudden rush of blood through his veins not quite reaching his face, and Yeosang decided that he didn’t quite mind this side of Wooyoung after all.

The werewolf’s presence was oddly less intrusive than Yeosang would have expected. He spent the early dawn hours tucked up in his armchair by the window, an open book on his lap as he looked out at the waking forest on his doorstep. He could hear Wooyoung breathing behind him, snuffling occasionally as he turned over, his heart beating slow and steady in his chest. It wasn’t a jarring noise, but comforting almost, something about its unchanging rhythm lulling Yeosang into a trance-like state of drowsiness.

He jerked a little when Wooyoung seemed to appear by his side quite out of nowhere, his silver hair tousled and his eyes squinched half-shut. “Hey,” Wooyoung murmured, one of his hands coming to rest casually on Yeosang’s shoulder as he leaned down to peer out of the window as well. “What are you looking at?”

The heat of Wooyoung’s skin bled through Yeosang’s shirt, and he felt suddenly like a cat lying in the sunlight, his shoulder growing pleasantly warm beneath Wooyoung’s touch. The unfamiliar sensation made him shiver slightly, but if Wooyoung noticed he gave no sign, his hand remaining a firm weight just beside Yeosang’s neck.

Finally, Yeosang stirred and said, “Nothing. Just the sunrise. You’ve missed it though.”

Wooyoung laughed at that for some reason, and then he padded away towards the bathroom, his hand sliding off Yeosang’s shoulder as he went. Yeosang waited until he heard the door click shut, and then he dragged his gaze away from the window, his unbeating heart more unsettled than he could remember it being in a very long time.

Later that morning, he carefully packed his neatly skinned catches and their various pelts into one basket, and pushed the one full of vegetables into Wooyoung’s hands when the werewolf insisted loudly on tagging along with him to the market. The little town that Yeosang frequented was located just off the western edge of the forest, and he was enough of a regular there not to draw too many odd stares when he came walking down the dirt path in his ridiculously conspicuous sun hat and long-sleeved shirts.

“This place is so _quaint_ ,” Wooyoung gasped as they entered the town, starry-eyed with enchantment as he looked around with all the ignorance of a city boy born and bred. Yeosang could possibly have told him to stay close if he had cared a little more. Instead, he watched with some amusement as Wooyoung eventually wandered off down another street, clearly following whatever sight or smell had caught his mercurial interest.

How long it took Wooyoung to eventually realise that he had lost track of Yeosang, the vampire had no idea. It was more than half an hour later before he saw Wooyoung again, rounding the corner that led onto the main street where Yeosang had already sold most of his goods. The werewolf was treading slowly, occasionally pausing to speak animatedly to first one shopkeeper and then another, but there was also something very alert about his stance, the faint tilt of his head seeming to suggest an intense sort of listening.

“Wooyoung,” he called, just loud enough for the other’s sharp ears to catch. Sure enough, Wooyoung spun around instantly, the smile already on his face widening even further as he bounded over to Yeosang’s side.

“I was looking for you,” he cried excitedly, as if they had been separated for an entire day rather than less than an hour.

Yeosang’s lips twitched slightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling despite the stoicism of his face. “I could tell,” he said simply, and it was ever so difficult not to smile back when Wooyoung was beaming at him like there was nothing better in the world to him than Yeosang’s company.

As unfortunate as their first meeting had been, Yeosang was starting to realise that the one word that encapsulated Wooyoung was, quite simply, _likable_. He would probably need both hands to list the number of things about Wooyoung that annoyed him to no end, and still there remained some strange form of animal magnetism that kept him from completely losing his temper with the bouncy werewolf.

“Either sit down or go and walk around a little more,” Yeosang said impatiently after a moment, when Wooyoung seemed inclined to continue standing foolishly in front of him. “Here, go and buy whatever ingredients that you need for cooking. I don’t want to hear you complaining about my damn kitchen again.” He grabbed hold of Wooyoung’s wrist and flipped his hand palm up, before placing his coin purse in it, ignoring the startled look that Wooyoung shot him in favour of pushing him gently away.

Wooyoung seemed strangely reluctant to leave Yeosang’s side, and even when he did he stuck quite close by, rarely straying out of earshot. It was all quite baffling. The tension in his posture hadn’t faded, and it disconcerted Yeosang more than he would admit to see Wooyoung so stiff, especially compared to his initial delight when they had first entered the town.

“What’s wrong with you?” Yeosang demanded when they were finally packing up to leave, peering over at Wooyoung from beneath the brim of his hat. “You look like you’re expecting to get set upon by thieves at any moment.” He rolled his eyes, irrationally annoyed at the worry that he was feeling. A werewolf and a vampire had no business feeling antsy around _humans_.

But for the first time, Wooyoung glanced at him without smiling, giggling or pouting. Taking Yeosang’s empty baskets from him, Wooyoung set a hand on Yeosang’s arm and leaned in close, just enough for the tips of his hair to tickle the vampire’s temple.

“I heard some guys talking about you,” he said quietly, with a seriousness that Yeosang would never have expected from him. “They sounded – I dunno, like they didn’t _like_ you very much.”

Drawing back, Yeosang took a good look at Wooyoung, finally recognising the peculiar expression on his face as badly concealed worry. “Wooyoung,” he sighed, smiling faintly as a strange mix of warmth and humour curled in his stomach. “I know those men you’re talking about. They don’t like vampires, but they’ve never made trouble for me before. They’re all talk – they’d never dare to face me head-on.” He grinned, sharp and just a little feral, making sure to flash his fangs for a second.

Wooyoung’s eyes narrowed slightly at that, uncertainty plain on his face, but Yeosang didn’t give him the time to respond. He set off back down the street the same way they had come, and was more amused than bothered that Wooyoung stayed so close that he was almost stepping on Yeosang’s heels the whole way.

“Stop fretting,” he said at last, stopping to grab Wooyoung by the wrist and meeting his eyes. “There are plenty of people who don’t like vampires everywhere – you get used to them. We’re just easier to pick out than your kind are, that’s all.” He squeezed Wooyoung’s wrist and shrugged, a wry ‘ _what can you do_ ’ motion.

Before Wooyoung could speak, Yeosang let go and turned away again. “Let’s get you some clothes, and then we can leave. I’m tired of having to share everything I own with you.” It was also nearing midday, and no matter how little the thought of hostile humans bothered him, Yeosang very much did not want to be caught near a human settlement when he was at his weakest.

The distaste that Yeosang carefully allowed to bleed into his voice was enough to raise Wooyoung’s hackles, and he immediately let out a highly aggrieved, “ _Hey_!” Given that he was currently dressed in Yeosang’s shirt and pants, however, there really was nothing more he could say to that, and Yeosang smirked the whole way over to the tailor’s at the disgruntled silence emanating from Wooyoung.

“Hongjoong,” he called in greeting as they stepped into the brightly-lit shop, relaxing at the sight of the familiar face behind the counter. Behind him, Wooyoung sneezed quite suddenly, snuffling in irritation at the strong smell of dyes hanging in the air. Yeosang had always liked Hongjoong’s shop – it was unforgivably crowded, with colourful bolts of cloth scattered across various tables and articles of clothing hung up haphazardly across all three walls, and yet it exuded a certain sense of cosiness that he enjoyed.

“Yeosang!” Hongjoong’s face brightened with a smile that could well rival Wooyoung’s. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. What do you need?”

Reaching behind him, Yeosang dragged Wooyoung away from one of the displays. “I need a few sets of clothes for _this_ guy,” he said, attempting to convey the extent of his unwarranted suffering to Hongjoong with his most dead-eyed glower. “Just simple pants, shirts, underwear. Nothing expensive – they’ll probably get ruined pretty quickly anyway.”

“That’s not true,” Wooyoung protested. “I’ll be careful.” He wrinkled his nose at Yeosang, but was at least good enough to stay still when Hongjoong began to take his measurements.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be back anytime this week, so just come by the next time you’re in town to pick your clothes up,” Hongjoong said cheerily once he was done, eyeing Yeosang with knowing amusement.

“I like you, Hongjoong, but I am _not_ coming by to visit more often,” Yeosang cut in, before Hongjoong could start with that worn spiel once more. The smaller man shook his head in mock despair and laughed, waving good-naturedly as he shooed both Yeosang and Wooyoung out of his shop.

“He was nice,” Wooyoung commented after a moment of thoughtful silence. “I liked him.”

“Yeah?” Yeosang shot him a glance, smiling slightly. “Me too.”

The walk back to his cottage could almost be termed as peaceful. Yeosang mostly kept his head down and his arms folded, only breathing a sigh of relief once they were back under the shade of the trees. He was accustomed to being out and about when the sun was high in the sky, but even after years of exposure it was still difficult to quash the natural anxiety that bubbled up in his throat at such vulnerability.

Wooyoung, on the other hand, had started stripping the moment they were beyond the trees, as comfortably content with his brazen nudity as ever. It was fascinating to Yeosang how much Wooyoung seemed to enjoy being in his wolf form. He was little more than a silver blur through the trees as he raced away and back, circling enthusiastically around Yeosang once or twice before dashing off again and repeating the entire process.

It was then that Yeosang made the discovery that Wooyoung could in fact be terribly quiet when he wanted to be, his paws landing whisper-soft on the leaf-covered ground every time he attempted to sneak up on Yeosang. It was nothing at all like the clumsy crashing that had heralded his approach when Yeosang had been checking his traps the day before, and he supposed that answered the question of how Wooyoung had survived thus far on his own without anyone to leech off.

“Stop that,” Yeosang groaned, rubbing his face in exasperation the third time he caught Wooyoung in the act of slinking up behind him, far too close for comfort if he had been an enemy. At this time of day, all it was doing was making him jumpy, his lips constantly itching to draw back in a snarl. He considered making a leap for Wooyoung for just a second, just to scare the wolf a little, but found that he didn’t have the energy to play rough right then.

Barking out a laugh, Wooyoung slowed to sniff at Yeosang’s hand for a moment with his damp nose, and then rushed off once more, leaving Yeosang to make his way home alone. He tumbled gratefully into bed the moment he entered his cottage, barely making time to toss his hat aside. The last thing he remembered seeing before he stopped breathing was Wooyoung sticking his head in through the open front door, tongue lolling out in a grin as he panted in quick, shallow breaths.

_Damn wolf_ , Yeosang thought groggily, and then he fell dead asleep for the rest of the afternoon.


	2. Chapter 2

For a vampire, breakfast in bed wasn’t typically a viable option considering how sickening blood that wasn’t fresh tasted, and the amount of preparation needed for each meal.

For Yeosang, the equivalent was a lot like having his werewolf housemate hunt down a stag, drain it, and lay out every single mug he could find in the cottage full to the brim with blood for when Yeosang awoke in the evening. Truthfully, Yeosang preferred smaller meals in frequent doses, but Wooyoung looked so very pleased with himself when Yeosang opened his eyes that he ended up drinking every last drop anyway.

“I’m not going to need to feed for the next fortnight,” he groaned, putting his head down on the table as he pushed the last mug aside, already regretting every decision he had made since waking up. Yeosang felt unnaturally warm, his pale skin flushed a visible pink all over. He hadn’t over-indulged so excessively _ever_ , and he felt sluggishly exhausted, like a bear preparing for an extended hibernation in winter.

Coming around the table to crouch by Yeosang’s side, Wooyoung tugged him upright, looking suddenly anxious. “Are you okay?” he demanded, only to get momentarily distracted when he pressed his palms to Yeosang’s cheeks and squeezed. “Wow, you actually look alive. Well, alive but kind of feverish actually, because you’re so pink.” He chuckled nervously, seeming afraid to let go of Yeosang’s face in case the vampire fell over onto the table in a dead faint.

“I’m fine,” Yeosang mumbled, batting ineffectually at Wooyoung’s hands. “Just give me a couple of minutes. I don’t usually drink so much at once. I trap rabbits for a _reason_ , Wooyoung.”

“Uh, yeah, I realised my mistake once I started bleeding the stag,” Wooyoung admitted sheepishly, drawing back and rubbing at the back of his neck. “The stupid thing just kept bleeding and bleeding, and then I realised the blood wouldn’t keep.”

Yeosang sighed. “What even possessed you to bring down a whole deer?” he asked, frowning up at Wooyoung in bafflement. “Are you going to eat it?”

Wooyoung seemed oddly flustered, his hands clenching and unclenching uncomfortably. “No, I just figured we could sell it the next time we went to the market,” he spluttered. “Plus I’ve been living off you for a while now, so I thought – you know, you deserved a treat. Not a _treat_ , but – I mean, as thanks.”

Yeosang snorted. “A treat,” he echoed mockingly, and then, just a little less ungratefully, “Could have been better thought out, but I suppose I appreciate the sentiment.” It was strange, to think that the time Wooyoung had taken up residence in his home could now be measured in weeks. Not particularly long for a vampire and a werewolf, but certainly longer than Yeosang would have expected himself to tolerate such an unruly disruption to his usual routine.

Feeling marginally more functional after another hour of uncomfortable dozing, Yeosang pushed himself to his feet, repressing a grunt at the unaccustomed heaviness of his entire body. It would, he hoped, wear off soon enough, but right then he was decidedly grumpy as he began to clear the mugs littering the table. Wooyoung was, of course, nowhere to be seen, and the realisation did nothing for his already-plummeting mood.

A typical stunt for the werewolf, to run off before the actual cleaning up could be done, Yeosang thought quite uncharitably, conveniently choosing to forget all the times Wooyoung had tidied his cottage while he slept.

He had just finished aggressively scrubbing the dried bloodstains out of the earthenware when a sudden howl cut through the peaceful silence. Yeosang paused, all the hairs on the back of his neck prickling alertly as he turned to look out of the window. He had recognised Wooyoung’s call immediately, but the werewolf hadn’t sounded distressed, nor even particularly nearby. He had just sounded very… _wolfish_. Unnaturally so, in fact.

Setting down the cup in his hands in sudden realisation, Yeosang hurried to his front door and flung it wide open. Sure enough, the full moon hung just above the trees, bloated and shining its pale light down upon the forest, washing the landscape in otherworldly shades of blue.

And somewhere out there among the trees, a werewolf roamed.

Not that Yeosang thought that Wooyoung might be a danger to anyone, but some part of him felt uneasy all the same. It might have been ancient defensive instincts roused from dormancy, or perhaps just plain old worry for someone he had somehow come to think of as a friend.

Wooyoung found Yeosang quickly enough as he made his way along the well-worn paths he had travelled for years, the wolf leaping out into the open with amber eyes gleaming and paws splayed wide. Yeosang halted calmly, taking in the look of gleeful delight in that bright gaze that was all Wooyoung, with barely a shadow of the predator hidden behind.

“Are you bored?” he asked, amused. Wooyoung huffed, leaping quickly towards Yeosang and then away, his tail wagging behind him. It was almost ridiculous, seeing a wolf the size of a horse sinking into a play bow, his fangs flashing as he grinned.

Yeosang cocked his head, eyes narrowing slyly as he met Wooyoung’s gaze. He smiled for just a moment, briefly, and then he dashed away, hearing Wooyoung’s yip of excitement as he set off in pursuit. It wasn’t much of a chase – vampires were built quick and deadly, designed to kill or incapacitate almost instantaneously, but they would never be able to match werewolves in an extended hunt – but Yeosang figured it would at least get all the deer blood in him circulating a little better.

Flitting behind a tree, he made a sharp left turn, only for Wooyoung to come barrelling crosswise into him with a rumbling growl of elation. Yeosang felt the breath he didn’t need leave him as he went tumbling head over heels into a tree, momentum that he used to flip himself back onto his feet right before Wooyoung bowled him over again with one massive paw swipe to his legs.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Yeosang shook his head as he spat a dead leaf out of his mouth, running his fingers through his hair with faint distaste. He felt Wooyoung’s nose abruptly press against his ear, and shoved the werewolf away before he could start licking happily all over Yeosang’s face as he was wont to do. Much to his chagrin, the vampire had discovered Wooyoung’s excessive love for licking far more up close and personal than he had ever wanted.

Standing, he turned to eye Wooyoung, whose paws were shifting restlessly against the dirt as he stared right back at Yeosang. It was just a little unnerving to see the brief occasions the wolf came to the fore, Wooyoung’s eyes turning coldly predatory for a moment before fading back behind the human’s base good nature.

Yeosang also found it surprisingly stimulating – it had been a very long time since he’d had cause to exert himself like this. Chucking Wooyoung under the chin and making the wolf blink in surprise, he darted away once more, lifting his face against the cool rush of air created by his own speed.

It was an hour or so till dawn when Wooyoung finally called their mad chase of cat and mouse to an end. He sent them both sprawling to the ground with a single lunge, before promptly wriggling forward to lay himself across Yeosang’s torso with a satisfied exhalation. Yeosang hissed, lifting his knees and digging them into Wooyoung’s belly until the wolf yelped and flopped off him.

“You big lug,” Yeosang muttered, burying his fingers into the thick fur just behind Wooyoung’s ears and scratching lightly. Wooyoung twisted about, resting his muzzle against Yeosang’s side as his eyes closed, a low whine of contentment whistling from his throat.

And Yeosang felt – well, he wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was he was feeling, but he did know what he _wasn’t_ feeling. He wasn’t disgusted, and he wasn’t annoyed, and he certainly wasn’t inclined to move away from this spot anytime soon.

If anyone had told Yeosang a month ago that he would soon find himself lying down in the dirt giving a werewolf ear scratches like some horribly oversized puppy, he would have chased them off his damn property with a broom. Even after a hundred years, life still found the strangest ways to surprise him.

“Come on,” he said at last, tugging on a hunk of fur as he sat up, head angled towards the lightening sky visible through the leaves. “The sun’s coming up soon and I don’t want to be caught out here once it’s in the sky.”

Wooyoung shifted back halfway through their journey as the moon dimmed, eclipsed by the glow of the rising sun. His silver hair was dishevelled, an uncharacteristic exhaustion lining his face, and Yeosang honestly didn’t know enough about werewolves to have the slightest idea if this was normal. All the same, he let Wooyoung lace their fingers together as they walked, more for the other’s comfort than anything else, it seemed. Wooyoung’s palm was warm against his, and some small part of Yeosang wondered when this simple action had become so comfortably ordinary for them both.

A little later, emerging from the bathroom in his usual state of complete nakedness, his hair damp and smile bright despite his fatigue, Wooyoung said cheerily, “That was fun, wasn’t it?” Yeosang shot him a sideways glance and made a deliberately noncommittal noise, choosing to toss a pair of pants Wooyoung’s way in favour of giving an actual response. He certainly wasn’t about to admit out loud that he had enjoyed being chased around by a werewolf all night.

Snatching the pants out of the air, Wooyoung hesitated, looking confused. “I’m sleeping on the floor, aren’t I?”

“Why would you be sleeping on the _floor_?” Yeosang’s mouth twitched slightly in annoyance as he turned to glower at Wooyoung in vague irritation. He was well aware that Wooyoung enjoyed running around in his wolf form, but he was just as conscious of the fact that when push came to shove, Wooyoung would take sleeping on a bed as a human than on the floor as a wolf any day. Anyone would, really.

Wooyoung’s brows raised slightly at Yeosang’s tone. “Well, you’re going to need the bed for your nap later,” he said petulantly, as if Yeosang was the one being particularly thick.

“Just put your pants on and get on the bed,” Yeosang said impatiently, more annoyed at his own irrational agitation than anything in particular that Wooyoung had said. “There’s enough space for both of us as long as you don’t flail about everywhere like an octopus.”

Wooyoung let out an odd-sounding squeak at that as he scrambled to comply, his ears tinged pink as he burrowed underneath the blankets. Yeosang stood motionless, taking in the sight with fascination despite his complete lack of appetite.

“You know, you look nice when you blush,” he said softly, almost teasingly, as he approached the bed with light steps. Something about the sudden, stifling silence that settled between them was making him feel disconcertingly predatory. Wooyoung was unnaturally still as he watched Yeosang approach, his pupils dilating slowly as the distance between them narrowed, but Yeosang could clearly hear the sudden quickening of Wooyoung’s pulse, the strong rush of blood pumping through the ventricles of his heart.

Wooyoung scooted back slightly as Yeosang took a seat on the edge of the bed, his head tilting up just a little in Yeosang’s direction, but right then the vampire found himself quite abruptly preoccupied with the realisation that the bed was indeed going to be a rather tight fit for both of them. He hadn’t exactly imagined that he might end up sharing his bed with someone else when he had first built his cottage.

“What is it?” Wooyoung asked at last, seeming just a little peevish as he waited for Yeosang to stop looking around the small space like it was the first time he had ever seen it.

Yeosang shrugged, the remaining tension between them melting away as he looked back at Wooyoung. “Nothing,” he said sardonically. “Just thinking about how I’ll throw you out of the house if you accidentally shove me off the bed.”

Wooyoung grinned. “You wouldn’t even be able to lift me,” he scoffed, as if Yeosang hadn’t quite easily flipped him onto his back the first day they’d met.

“Try me,” Yeosang muttered, as he laid down and shut his eyes. He felt Wooyoung tuck some of the blankets over him, and although Yeosang didn’t really need them considering he was essentially, well, _dead_ , the gesture made him feel a somewhat concerning approximation of warmth in his chest. He was so startled by the odd emotion that he didn’t even try to shift away when Wooyoung threw an entire arm and leg right over him, pressing his nose against Yeosang’s shoulder with a sleepy-sounding snuffle.

Being like this – it wasn’t so bad anyway, Yeosang thought, staring up at the ceiling as he felt Wooyoung’s heartbeat throbbing right against his skin. The werewolf was as warm as a furnace by his side, and it was rare enough for Yeosang to experience any form of heat that he didn’t immediately hate with a passion. Closing his eyes, he fell asleep warm and toasty for the first time in decades.

The loss of that warmth was also the first thing Yeosang noticed when he awoke, and he barely had the time to feel a twinge of disappointment before he turned to the left and came face-to-face with none other than Wooyoung, who was lying on his side with the fairly obvious sole intention of watching Yeosang sleep.

“You do know that that’s really creepy,” Yeosang said casually.

Wooyoung’s face twisted in a contorted sort of grimace before settling into an expression of mild embarrassment. “You know what’s really creepy? Waking up touching someone who isn’t even _breathing_ ,” he complained. “I freaked out for half a second before remembering that was normal for you.”

Yeosang’s laugh burst out of him, a sudden soft puff of air that seemed to surprise Wooyoung just as much as himself. “You idiot,” he said, his lip curling in open amusement, although he did have to admit that waking up next to a vampire probably didn’t rank high among the list of Wooyoung’s best experiences. He reached out, cupping the back of Wooyoung’s neck briefly in an affectionate gesture he hadn’t even realised he’d picked up from the werewolf, before sliding out of bed.

Wooyoung watched him go, still half-tangled in the covers and blinking lazily.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Yeosang asked as he inspected himself in the bathroom mirror, wondering at the lack of noise coming from his kitchen. Living with a werewolf was a lot like what he imagined living with a dozen growing teenagers to be like, and he supposed he was fortunate that Wooyoung was perfectly capable of both catching and cooking his own meals.

Or perhaps Wooyoung was the fortunate one, because Yeosang certainly wasn’t about to do anything of the sort for him.

“I’m still tired,” Wooyoung called back, with a distinct whine in his tone. “Cook something for me.”

Yeosang snorted. “You wish,” he muttered.

“I bet you don’t even know how to cook,” Wooyoung said accusingly, clucking his tongue disapprovingly at Yeosang when he reappeared. While true, that attack was, Yeosang felt, quite unwarranted.

“I’m a vampire. There’s hardly any reason for me to know how to _cook_ ,” he said haughtily, but it was too late. Wooyoung was already cackling with glee at the defiance written all over Yeosang’s face, his laughter seeming to reach an impossibly higher pitch with every breath.

“I’ll teach you next time,” he gasped out between giggles as Yeosang glared daggers at him. “Meat is the easiest thing to prepare, seriously.”

Yeosang’s brows furrowed even further, a sharp burst of irritation flooding through him at the thought. “And who would I cook for once you leave? Hongjoong?” he snapped. “I don’t like spending my time on useless pursuits, Wooyoung. Just drop it.”

Wooyoung’s face fell at the sudden harshness of Yeosang’s words, the light in his eyes fading swiftly into disappointment. “I mean, I wasn’t planning to leave so soon,” he mumbled, breaking eye contact as he rolled onto his back, bottom lip caught between his teeth.

Yeosang hesitated. “What happened to exploring the country?” he asked snippily, his tone still decidedly more defensive than apologetic. He didn’t like feeling this way, this mish-mash of confusion and tenderness that seemed to seize him tighter each time he looked at Wooyoung. He didn’t like caring about the day that Wooyoung would inevitably leave, leaving Yeosang as only a brief pitstop on his way to better things.

It hurt in a way that Yeosang wasn’t accustomed to hurting, and it only made him nastier than usual.

Wooyoung shot him a wounded look. “It’s not like I’m a human – I’ve got lots of time. I figured there wasn’t any rush,” he said plaintively, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “I mean, unless you _want_ me to leave.” His fingers were white-knuckled fists where they were clenched around the blankets, his face drawn and anxious as he searched Yeosang’s expression.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t say anything of the sort,” Yeosang said crossly, folding his arms and glaring determinedly out of the window. “You can stay. I don’t care.”

He half-expected Wooyoung to start whining pitifully at that – the werewolf had, after all, perfected the art of whingeing – but what he heard instead was a subdued, “Do you really not care?”

Yeosang whipped about to look at Wooyoung, speechless for a long moment. What did it matter if he cared?

“I think you’re really fun. I wanted to get to know you a little more – that’s why I decided to stick around for a bit,” Wooyoung said quietly, drawing his knees up to his chin, more solemn than Yeosang had ever seen him. “I like you, but if you don’t want me around I won’t stay. I don’t want to make things difficult.”

Yeosang had no idea what to do or say in the face of this sudden turn of events. When had he ever given the impression of not wanting Wooyoung around?

“I don’t – not care,” he said stupidly, wishing he were half as good with pretty words as he was with cutting insults. “You don’t have to leave. Having you around is – _fine_. It’s not terrible or anything.”

Wooyoung’s eyes narrowed slightly, staring at Yeosang for a moment longer before his face softened into his usual semi-permanent smile. “You’re terrible at being nice, you know that?” he said with a laugh, tossing the covers aside and padding out of bed over to Yeosang’s side. “You like me too, just admit it.” He threw his arms about Yeosang’s neck and snuggled close, his nose pressing into the hollow just beneath the vampire’s jaw, exactly where a mortal’s pulse point would be.

Yeosang closed his eyes and suppressed a shiver at the sudden contact, one hand coming to rest along the bare skin of Wooyoung’s waist. “You’re like a damn fungus,” he mumbled. “Impossible to get rid of.”

Wooyoung chuckled, pulling back just a little to look Yeosang in the eye. “But I’m your _favourite_ fungus,” he said playfully, and their faces were so close that Yeosang could quite easily track the slow path of Wooyoung’s heated gaze across his face, as shamelessly as the werewolf did everything else. He could hear the even beat of Wooyoung’s heartrate increasing again, see the slow surge of blood travelling up his neck like a beacon.

“What?” he whispered, barely audible, hardly knowing what to do with the realisation that he could quite clearly see every last lash framing Wooyoung’s eyes.

Wooyoung smirked, the shine of his eyes very bright amidst the evening shadows. “I’m just thinking about how much I want to kiss you,” he confessed, somehow managing to sound both brazen and bashful all at the same time.

Yeosang blinked, feeling very much like Wooyoung had just decked him in the face without warning. “Oh,” he said, more flabbergasted than he could ever remember being, and then he realised after a moment of wide-eyed panic that the entire scenario didn’t sound like such a bad idea after all.

“I suppose there isn’t anything stopping you,” he said slowly, and Wooyoung’s brows rose, a flash of something Yeosang thought might be hope lighting his face.

“Not even you?” he asked, still teasing, but the hand cupping the back of Yeosang’s neck was tense.

Yeosang smiled faintly and shrugged – not exactly a welcoming gesture, perhaps, but Wooyoung was perfectly happy to take it as the invitation it was. He lunged forward quite suddenly, almost as if for a kill, and every predatory instinct deep in Yeosang’s bones lit up for a single second. His fingers pressed roughly into warm flesh as he was knocked backwards into the wall – and then Wooyoung’s mouth was hot against his lips, one hand coming up to cradle the side of Yeosang’s face.

Despite the impossibility of it all, Yeosang found himself suddenly seized with the distinct sensation of breathlessness as he parted his lips to Wooyoung’s tongue, the werewolf’s unexpected aggression making him gasp. He could feel himself melting quite pleasurably at the warmth that was every inch of Wooyoung’s body pressed flush against his, moaning in a way that would have thoroughly humiliated him had he still possessed the presence of mind to be embarrassed.

Wooyoung too seemed to have completely lost his head, the rumbling growls emanating from deep in his chest sounding far more feral than any human throat could produce. And yet his hands remained gentle, trailing tenderly down Yeosang’s neck and coming to a chaste halt in the vicinity of his sternum. Yeosang had no such qualms – he buried his fingers in Wooyoung’s hair, tugging lightly and tilting his head to deepen the kiss, drunk on the sound of Wooyoung panting heavily against him.

Yeosang felt as if his every sense was gradually being consumed by Wooyoung – the irresistible heat of him scorching everywhere he touched, as if his very life was bleeding into the vampire. The taste of him, sweet and addictive. The sound of his heart racing, echoing alluringly in Yeosang’s ears, and the scent of him, sweat and linen and that pleasantly familiar musk that was all Wooyoung.

He wasn’t hungry, but still he found his fangs lengthening inadvertently, a hiss of frustration leaving Yeosang’s throat as he felt Wooyoung draw back in surprise, the tip of one canine nicking the werewolf’s bottom lip and filling the air with the faint smell of blood.

Yeosang jerked backwards immediately, shaking his head slightly as if dazed. “Sorry,” he muttered, his eyes coming to rest on the pearl of crimson sitting on Wooyoung’s lip. He saw as if in slow motion the way Wooyoung’s tongue darted out to lick it away, and how immediately another bead began to form from the shallow gash.

“Yeosang?” Wooyoung said cautiously, only appearing slightly startled when the vampire abruptly grabbed him by the shoulders. Yeosang leaned in slowly, slanting his mouth over Wooyoung’s with controlled intent, his tongue drawing a long, delicate swipe along Wooyoung’s plump bottom lip. He could hardly taste the blood, just a barely-there tang of iron that came and went in the blink of an eye, but it was really the _knowing_ that counted, and Wooyoung’s faint shudder beneath his hands.

His every motion was slower this time, a pace that Wooyoung seemed content to follow, a gentle exploration of each other rather than the initial madness that had taken hold. It all made Yeosang feel strangely loose and slightly untethered, as if his entire consciousness might drift right out of his body if Wooyoung let go of him. Lust didn’t feel like this, he thought, and it bothered him less than he might have expected.

Wooyoung was flushed more darkly than Yeosang had ever seen him when they finally drew apart. Even the top of his chest was tinged pink, an enticing combination of arousal and exertion.

“Wow,” he said after a moment, a slow, slow smile of pure happiness spreading on his face the longer he stared at Yeosang.

Yeosang twitched slightly beneath the scrutiny, turning Wooyoung away from him and physically steering him back to the bed. “Stop looking at me and go to sleep,” he said shortly. “You said you were still tired earlier.”

Wooyoung laughed, and there was an edge of unmistakable fondness to that sound now, or perhaps Yeosang had just never noticed it before. He obediently tucked himself back under the blankets anyway, shifting until he found a good spot on the pillow.

“Hold on,” he said suddenly, just before Yeosang could turn away. “Did my blood taste like a human’s or a wolf’s?”

Yeosang cocked his head, baffled for a moment by the unexpected silliness of the question. “There wasn’t much of it. I didn’t get a good taste,” he said at last, truthfully, his brows drawing inwards as he eyed Wooyoung with an expression that was torn between disbelief and amusement, “but I would assume it tasted like a human’s. You _are_ in human form.”

“Hm. Interesting.” Wooyoung wrinkled his nose for a moment before appearing to lose all interest in the thought. Instead, he fixed a rather sultry looking smirk on Yeosang, his fingers crooking in a tiny come-hither gesture that made Yeosang’s lips draw back slightly in a silent hiss of exasperation.

“You should give me a goodnight kiss,” he purred, propping himself up on one elbow eagerly, and Yeosang found himself being drawn forward without thought. He bent slightly, aiming for a brief peck, but found himself almost toppling over when Wooyoung grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged Yeosang’s mouth down to his with charming enthusiasm.

It was quite a long while later before Yeosang found himself outside his cottage, seated on a small stool as he stared blankly at his garden. While Wooyoung slept, he contemplated his growing cabbages beneath the cold glow of the moon, the cool breeze wiping away any last trace of Wooyoung’s burning touch on his skin. It had been a long time since anyone had touched Yeosang that way, since he had _wanted_ to be touched that way. He had liked it all, the rough and the tender, the werewolf’s scent filling his nostrils thickly, fingers grasping desperately at the sleeves of Yeosang’s shirt.

Quite simply, he liked Wooyoung, very much indeed – more than he should, perhaps, but it was a useless fact to deny now.

They headed into town early the next morning, with the carcass of the stag Wooyoung had brought down slung across his shoulders. He looked comically dwarfed by the animal, and Yeosang caught sight of a couple of townsfolk eyeing him in bemusement as they passed. As always, Wooyoung wandered off fairly swiftly after leaving the actual sale to Yeosang, prancing away with excitement as he looked for new things to buy.

Mostly he tended to return with various seasonings and garnishes for his meals, or cuts of meat he didn’t have as much access to, like chicken. It was almost cute. Yeosang had never expected a werewolf to be quite so excessively discerning about food.

“Are you about done?” he asked wryly as he spotted Wooyoung bounding back over to him with his basket in hand. Joining Yeosang in the shade, Wooyoung beamed, flipping the lid open to show off the multitude of herbs inside that the vampire really had very little interest in.

“You do know we could just start planting those on our own,” Yeosang muttered, as he began to lead the way out of the town. He was only half-listening to Wooyoung wax poetic about the merits of coriander or some such when the hair on the back of his neck prickled, a faint sensation of unease rather than a warning of outright danger. Tilting his head slightly, he saw from just beneath the brim of his hat a man watching him from a doorway, black hatred mingled with fear plain on his face.

Yeosang gave the man little more than a passing glance. As long as they didn’t make trouble, the opinions of such people meant very little to him. He knew perfectly well that the age-old fear of a natural predator sometimes never quite faded, just as he knew equally well that he _was_ a predator, and an apex one at that.

Beside him, Wooyoung was still chattering on, cheerfully oblivious to the obvious vampiric hostility for once. “– and you can finally start learning to cook!” was what Yeosang heard as he tuned back in, and he let out an audible sigh, making Wooyoung whip around to face him with a dangerous pout on his face.

“I thought we’d agreed that I don’t need to learn to cook,” Yeosang said feebly, but he already knew in his heart of unbeating hearts that it was a battle he was going to lose.

“I agreed to nothing of the sort,” Wooyoung protested, and then he clasped his hands together with the hugest, most shit-eating grin on his face Yeosang had ever seen. “Look, if I teach you, you can cook for me after full moons. That would be _so_ romantic. And you could surprise me whenever you felt like it too. I’m helping you to make me happy!”

Yeosang closed his eyes and prayed to the limited reserves of inner peace within himself for patience. “I actually hate you,” he said flatly, resigned, and Wooyoung’s expression softened into delight at the surrender, completely unfazed by Yeosang’s obvious exasperation. Twisting around so that he was walking backwards as he kept pace with the vampire, he darted in and ducked beneath the ludicrously wide hat to plant a loud kiss on Yeosang’s mouth.

Yeosang rolled his eyes as he smacked Wooyoung out of his way, trying and failing to suppress the smile blossoming on his face. “That isn’t always going to work, you know,” he warned. “You can’t just keep _kissing_ me into submission.”

“So you say,” Wooyoung chirped, throwing Yeosang a smug grin.

Some part of Yeosang half-hoped that Wooyoung might have forgotten all about his dreaded cooking lessons by the time evening rolled around, but the rest of him was not at all surprised to wake up to various dishes of raw meat set up on his dining table and the fire already crackling merrily in his stove. Wooyoung himself was seated in Yeosang’s armchair by the window, his legs tucked up deer-like beneath him as he browsed through one of Yeosang’s novels in a rare moment of peace.

Yeosang blinked slowly at the sight, bringing his breathing to a deliberate halt once more before Wooyoung could realise that he had awoken. Wooyoung’s expressive face was still and calm for once, his gaze relaxed as his eyes tracked down the page. The evening light washed him in a pale orange glow, his hair gleaming bright as flame. Yeosang’s chest ached at the beauty of the scene before him, of Wooyoung completely at peace. There was something about the quiet domesticity of the scene that he could almost imagine as a painting somewhere – _Werewolf at Rest_.

Finally, he shifted, just a rustle of his leg against the sheets, and Wooyoung’s head immediately snapped up, a smile already forming on his face as he dumped the book aside. He trotted after Yeosang right into the bathroom like a particularly inconvenient shadow, resting his chin heavily against Yeosang’s shoulder with a huff of contentment. Slowly, as if he really thought that he might get away with it unnoticed, one of Wooyoung’s hands trailed underneath Yeosang’s shirt to splay warmly against the vampire’s bare skin.

“Stop that,” Yeosang muttered as he tried to clean his teeth in peace, shivering slightly at the ticklish sensation of Wooyoung tracing along the contours of his torso with his fingers.

“It’s not my fault you’re so touchable,” Wooyoung mumbled, snuffling his nose against Yeosang’s back and allowing himself to be dragged along behind the vampire in a most undignified manner. “I’ve been wanting to do all of this for _ages_.”

“You’ve hardly known me a month,” Yeosang snorted, forcibly detaching Wooyoung’s arms from around him and turning so that they could speak face-to-face like civilised beings.

Wooyoung huffed. “That _is_ ages when you like someone,” he insisted, rounding the table to pick something out of the basket he had left on one of the chairs. “Anyway, look what I got Hongjoong to make for us!” He unfolded one of the pieces of fabric excitedly, dangling it in one hand before shaking the other out as well. Yeosang stared at them blankly for a moment, each of them just a rectangular piece of cloth with two long strips hanging from them, one trimmed with gold stitches and the other with silver.

“What are they?” he asked at last, confused.

Rolling his eyes affectionately, Wooyoung tossed the silver-trimmed piece aside before hurrying back over to Yeosang. “They’re _aprons_ , you idiot,” he said with a laugh, setting the top of the rectangle against Yeosang’s waist before reaching around him. “You just bring them back around to the front like this and tie them.”

Crossing the two thin straps behind Yeosang’s back, Wooyoung took a step backwards with the ends of the apron still in his hands. Yeosang glanced up, raising his brows slightly at the look of mischief glinting in Wooyoung’s amber eyes. He was just about to open his mouth to ask _What?_ when Wooyoung tugged sharply on the apron strings, hard enough for Yeosang to stumble forward with a surprised intake of breath.

Wooyoung caught him with perfect ease, one hand curving about Yeosang’s waist and pulling him even closer. “Got you,” he whispered, and Yeosang almost thought that his heart might have fluttered impossibly at the sheer silky sultriness that poured from Wooyoung’s throat. He closed his eyes as Wooyoung leaned in, breath whispering tantalisingly against his lips. He barely even felt the apron falling away from him into a crumpled heap on the floor.

And then Wooyoung giggled, loud and pent-up, and the spell was broken. Yeosang stepped away, brows furrowed but one corner of his lips tilting upwards in affectionate confusion.

“I didn’t realise it would work so well,” Wooyoung admitted sheepishly, still chuckling as he bent to retrieve Yeosang’s apron. “I got shocked when you actually tripped. I shouldn’t have laughed though – I didn’t get even manage to get my kiss yet.” He angled his face downwards just a little, blinking at Yeosang in a manner that was probably intended to be enticing but only made him look even more unbearable than usual.

“I’d kiss you just to stop you from making that face at me,” Yeosang said dryly, and then, “Do you have a kissing addiction that I don’t know about?”

Wooyoung grinned. “Nope, I’m just addicted to you,” he said cheerfully as he began to tie his own apron on, and Yeosang had to admit quite grudgingly that he _had_ walked into that one himself.

He was just beginning to figure his apron out on his own when Wooyoung swiftly snatched it out of his hands, smoothing it out before winding it around Yeosang’s waist with quick, sure movements. “I can’t believe you didn’t even recognise this as an apron earlier,” he said teasingly, as he knotted the ends right above Yeosang’s waist and tucked the little ribbon neatly out of sight, giving Yeosang’s stomach a pat as he finished.

“Come back here,” Yeosang said quite suddenly, just before Wooyoung could move away.

“What is it?” Wooyoung looked slightly startled at the unexpected summons as he turned back around, but also oddly anticipatory, like someone who was fully expecting to receive a gift but didn’t know exactly what it was.

Yeosang shook his head, setting his hands lightly on either side of Wooyoung’s neck, thumbs tracing along the sharp edge of his jaw. “I just like to look at you,” he said, feeling the steady beat of Wooyoung’s heart swelling against his palms. “It’s the only time you’re ever quiet.”

Wooyoung’s eyes curved into crescents of delight as he grinned, but he stayed carefully silent as one of Yeosang’s hands moved upwards, brushing momentarily across his raised cheekbones. Yeosang’s other hand stayed pressed against Wooyoung’s neck, his eyes fluttering half-shut as he traced past the bridge of Wooyoung’s nose and further down, feeling the pulse beneath Wooyoung’s skin begin to thrum when his fingers caught momentarily against the werewolf’s bottom lip.

_You make me happy_ , he thought, and wondered how four little words could be so very difficult to say out loud.

The growl started deep in Wooyoung’s chest, a low rumble almost like a purr as he swayed forward, catching one of Yeosang’s fingers carefully between his teeth. Yeosang could feel the wet warmth of Wooyoung’s tongue against his skin, almost kittenish in its unusual delicacy, and the odd sensation raised goosebumps all along his arm.

“We really should be cooking,” he said, hoarse and stilted as he watched Wooyoung blink innocently at him, lips rounded slightly around his finger.

With an incorrigible smirk, Wooyoung released Yeosang’s finger with a filthy-sounding _pop_. “Suddenly you decide you want to start cooking?” he teased, but he seemed quite nonchalant as he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Yeosang’s mouth before turning back to the raw meat on the table, as if the moment was already forgotten. Yeosang stared at him incredulously, very conscious of the fact that Wooyoung’s saliva was still drying on his skin.

_Damn wolf_ , he thought, and he had never meant it quite so fervently as he did at that very moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell, the woosang V Live happened while I was writing this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence warnings apply here! Nothing too gratuitous (I hope) but please be mindful.

In spite of the fact that Wooyoung seemed constitutionally incapable of keeping his hands off Yeosang during the vampire’s waking hours, Yeosang had never actually had the pleasure of waking up with Wooyoung at his side. Occasionally, on particularly cuddly afternoons, Wooyoung would lay himself bodily across the vampire, his palms on Yeosang’s chest and his chin resting on the backs of his hands as he blinked stalkerishly at Yeosang, who had pretty much gotten used to falling asleep while being stared at.

Mostly, however, he tried to avoid touching Yeosang as much as possible while he slept.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Wooyoung asked quite suddenly one morning as he lounged on the armchair, scrambling onto his knees so that he could fix Yeosang with an anxious look over the back of the chair.

Pausing in his sweeping, Yeosang looked up. “Mind what?”

“You _know_ ,” Wooyoung said meaningfully, as if he expected Yeosang to have suddenly turned telepathic in the last five seconds. “Waking up alone in bed and all that.”

Yeosang had quite given up on trying to figure out how or why Wooyoung’s thoughts swerved onto these unexpected tangents, and he only shrugged. “No?” he said cautiously, uncertain of what exactly Wooyoung was going to say next.

“The thing is, I’m used to you being kind of cool to the touch, but when you don’t breathe on top of that?” Wooyoung said with a shudder. “It’s _really_ creepy.”

“It’s literally been months, Wooyoung. I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about this before –” Yeosang started, but Wooyoung waved his hand in a shushing gesture as he ploughed onwards.

“No, I know, but I was thinking about it and I suddenly got worried that I might have accidentally hurt your feelings or something,” he said, speaking so quickly that his syllables were tumbling all over each other.

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang sighed, vaguely tempted to smack the werewolf over the head with his broomstick. “I honestly don’t particularly care. I don’t breathe when I sleep – it’s a fact. Besides, we don’t even share the same sleeping habits. Why on earth would I expect to wake up with you next to me?”

Wooyoung paused at that for a moment. “True,” he conceded at last, scrunching his nose slightly at the thought.

“If I were ever unhappy with you, you’d hear about it, believe me,” Yeosang snorted, and Wooyoung laughed at that. His worries gone, he flopped back down to continue whittling away at the block of wood in his hands, sending a fresh shower of wood shavings pattering down onto the floor that Yeosang did his best to ignore.

Wood carving was a new hobby that Wooyoung had only taken up recently, after becoming rather enamoured of a stall full of delicately carved wooden figurines that he had spotted at the market. He had spent half the morning chattering away to the travelling merchant about various types of wood and carving instruments, before trotting back to Yeosang with two new figurines in his basket instead of his usual spices.

“Look, it’s us!” he had said excitedly to Yeosang once they were back at the cottage, plucking a wolf and a rabbit out of the basket and laying them gently on the table. The wolf was seated on its haunches, muzzle raised as it howled at the moon, while the rabbit seemed to be dozing, its eyes closed and body tucked compactly together.

Yeosang had to admit that it was fine craftsmanship, but he couldn’t help asking, “Why am I a rabbit?”

Wooyoung raised his brows. “Because you drink rabbit blood. Whatever’s circulating inside you is basically rabbit,” he said, with such conviction that Yeosang simply couldn’t find the heart to argue about such a trivial matter. Delighted with his purchases, Wooyoung gave the two little figurines pride of place on the windowsill, the wolf on the left and the rabbit on the right.

Truth be told, Yeosang had almost expected Wooyoung’s interest in the whole carving thing to wane after a week or two – it seemed near impossible to him that an activity that required so much static sitting around would be able to hold the werewolf’s fickle interest – but a month had passed and still Wooyoung’s obsession showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, it was getting rather difficult to walk around his own cottage barefoot without stepping on wood chips or splinters left and right, and Yeosang began to find himself doing far more sweeping than was customary.

“What are you making today?” he asked as he set his broomstick aside, moving across the room to perch on the side of the armchair, leaning his weight against Wooyoung’s shoulder.

Wooyoung glanced up at Yeosang, and then back down at the formless lump of wood in his hands. “Well,” he started, and then sighed, “It’s supposed to be you, actually.” He flipped the small knife around in his hands absently, looking suddenly perturbed at his own lack of progress.

Yeosang quirked a smile, running his fingers lightly through Wooyoung’s pale hair. “Well, no one’s born knowing how to carve,” he said encouragingly, feeling the loosening of Wooyoung’s form against him, the slight tilt of his head upwards against the pressure of Yeosang’s fingers. “I’m going out to work on the garden for a bit before I sleep. Have fun – and make sure you clean up once you’re done.”

With a last pat on Wooyoung’s head, Yeosang slipped off the armrest and grabbed his hat from where it hung by the door, angling it down over his head with practiced ease. As he picked his way through the untrimmed grass, he glanced through the window to see Wooyoung peering out at him, elbows propped up on the windowsill. He raised a hand, and Wooyoung waved back enthusiastically with his block of wood.

It didn’t take long for Yeosang to realise that the forest at his back seemed unusually still that day. The birds were still singing, but it sounded to him like there were fewer of them, as if something had spooked them away. It didn’t necessarily mean anything – perhaps a predator had recently passed by – but it was enough to keep Yeosang in a state of cautious alert as he began weeding his small vegetable plot, instead of sinking into the enjoyable mindlessness that gardening usually induced in him.

“Be careful out there,” he said as he stepped through the doorway just after midday, stifling a yawn with his hand. “The birds are quieter today – might just be a badger or a fox though.”

Wooyoung grinned as he stood, shaking his limbs out and pulling his shirt off. “Whatever it is, I’ll scare it off. I’ve been itching for a run anyway.” Pulling Yeosang to him, mindless of the dirt speckling his pale skin, Wooyoung leaned in for a quick kiss before swiping at a smear of soil across Yeosang’s cheek with his thumb.

“You’re so cute,” he cooed, pressing another kiss to the very tip of Yeosang’s nose. Ignoring the vampire’s befuddled expression, he swept dramatically out of the cottage with the distinct air of satisfaction about him.

The next thing Yeosang knew, he was being shaken awake unceremoniously, the scent of blood hanging thick in the air as bright afternoon sunlight filtered into the cottage. He blinked, fangs extending automatically at the overwhelming smell as his gaze landed on Wooyoung’s face, so drawn with stress as to almost be unrecognisable.

“What happened?” he demanded, sitting up in an instant and grabbing hold of Wooyoung’s shoulders. He scanned down the werewolf’s naked form, lips drawing back in a hiss of fury at the sight of blood dripping red from Wooyoung’s side, a large, ragged gash laid open just beneath his ribs. Near the doorway, a crimson-stained crossbow bolt lay abandoned on the floor.

The sight made Yeosang’s blood run cold, and he looked up at Wooyoung just as the other burst out, like a portent of doom, “Yeosang, there’re _vampire hunters_ out there. Someone in town must have told them where you live.”

Yeosang had a very good idea of exactly who the culprits were.

Vampire hunters weren’t common these days – not many people still detested his species so much as to devote their lives to the extermination of vampires – but they were undeniably deadly. They preferred to ambush their napping victims in the day, but they also travelled in big enough groups to overwhelm any vampire they found awake. The real danger, however, was their proficiency with throwing knives and crossbows; they didn’t even have to get close to be a real threat.

“Why did they attack you?” he demanded, almost vibrating with fury as he stood, feeling a sickening mix of thirst and helplessness as he looked at Wooyoung’s open wound, already clotting before his very eyes.

“I took three of them out,” Wooyoung said, his lip curling with derision and his eyes burning gold. “But they’re good, Yeosang. They’re _really_ good. They got me when I was running fast, running away from them. We have to go.” He grabbed hold of Yeosang’s arm urgently, stepping back towards the front door, every inch of his body taut with tension.

Yeosang hesitated, and not just at the blistering light of day that was waiting for him the moment he set foot outside. “No, we have to get rid of them all,” he said quietly, his head tilting to the side as he listened carefully. “They’ll come back for me again otherwise. We’ll never be safe here.”

“We can’t kill _all_ of them!” Wooyoung whipped back around to face Yeosang, his face a rarely-seen mask of frustration, an angry growl in his throat as he paced back and forth, every inch a trapped beast. “We can always find a new home, Yeosang. Come on.” He reached for Yeosang’s hand, but the vampire pulled away with an impatient snarl, fangs bared, and Wooyoung’s face crumpled in shock for a moment.

“This is _my_ home, Wooyoung,” Yeosang snapped, “and I’m going to defend it. It’s no castle, but it’s mine.”

“This is the problem with you vampires,” Wooyoung cried. “You all get too attached to places and that’s how the hunters kill you. They know you won’t leave your home – but home isn’t just a place, Yeosang. Home is _people_. My home is with my family. My home is with _you_. You can build a new house and you can plant a new garden, but there’s only one of you. I can’t lose you like this!”

Yeosang glanced around at his cottage, snug and cosy, every inch of it constructed to his exact measurements with his own hands. He had lived here for so long, decades upon decades, that it felt almost like an extension of himself now, his safe haven. He looked back at Wooyoung, pleading and torn, but there was no understanding to be found on Wooyoung’s face, only sheer animal desperation.

“Wooyoung –” he started, but even then he didn’t have the faintest idea what his decision was. Every instinct in him was screaming to stand and fight, that no human could truly pose a threat to a vampire, but the rational side of him agreed with Wooyoung, even if he didn’t like it one bit. He reached out, wanting the simple comfort of a physical touch, but the sudden sound of voices in the distance made him freeze.

Wooyoung’s fever-bright gaze met his, and Yeosang saw in it not accusation but acute disappointment. “It’s too late. We’ll have to fight – get out into the forest and pick them off from behind before they corner us here.” Wooyoung swallowed, a shadow of fear crossing his face as he laid a hand on Yeosang’s cheek, his palm rough with dried blood. “Be careful.”

Yeosang’s voice seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in his throat. He said nothing as Wooyoung shifted, twisting and writhing, and he said nothing as Wooyoung burst out of the cottage, paws thudding against the dirt as he raced away, leaving Yeosang behind in a home that suddenly felt strangely hollow.

He found to his surprise that he was shaking as he rolled down the sleeves of his shirt, covering as much of his skin as he could, before dashing out after Wooyoung, circling around in the opposite direction the werewolf had gone. He felt the immediate sting of the scorching sun on his skin before he made it beneath the cover of the trees, treading lightly as he flitted from shadow to shadow, his chest still as he listened for the careful bootsteps and hushed tones of the hunters.

Somewhere not too far off, he heard Wooyoung howl.

“– never said there was a werewolf in the area,” one of the hunters complained gruffly, and Yeosang smiled coldly. No one in town had known what Wooyoung was, so it stood to reason that the hunters didn’t either.

But it also was painfully clear to Yeosang that these were no novices. There were at least a dozen of them, all in pairs so that they couldn’t be picked off one by one, their weapons well-oiled and well-used. Closing his eyes, he listened to their cautious approach, taking comfort in the knowledge that he was, at least, no longer the hunted. They were in his territory now.

The moment the last pair were ahead of him, Yeosang darted out of cover, silent until the moment he grabbed the last man’s head and snapped his neck in an instant. The man’s partner turned, knife drawn – deadly quick, but still far too slow when it came to defending against an enraged vampire. Yeosang snatched the knife out of the hunter’s hands and buried it swiftly in his eye, then spun and leaped for the closest person he could set his hands on.

He had used up his element of surprise – all he had left now was his speed and strength, but even that was finite.

A throwing knife sliced shallowly past his shoulder just as he broke the third hunter’s neck, a flesh wound that he barely noticed. The next moment, a crossbow bolt pierced right through the limp body in his hands and into his chest, almost deep enough to puncture a lung. Yeosang shrieked, a cry of shock more than anything else as he ripped himself off the shaft and retreated deep into the trees. He could hear the distinct _thud_ of another throwing knife embedding itself into bark mere feet behind him.

The men were giving chase, shouting to each other from between the trees, and that was when he heard Wooyoung strike, ripping into the hunters in their moment of disorganisation with a roar of rage. Circling around once more, Yeosang prowled slowly after the few men who had been in the lead, listening to the strong rhythm of their hearts with detached interest. These were not the heartbeats of terrified men – they were used to working under pressure, against prey that far outmatched them physically in every way.

Yeosang raced for them in an instant, aiming to kill quick and clean. Blood was leaking sluggishly from his chest, slowing him more with every second, and he would soon need to feed. Snatching a blade from an exposed holster, he shoved it into the side of one hunter’s temple, gritting his teeth as he pushed through bone, while barrelling another to the ground. In the brief moment it took for him to break the man’s neck, something punched violently through his back, sending him sprawling stunned into the dirt.

He felt dazed for a long moment, blinking in astonishment at the arrowhead protruding from the front of his chest, dark blood dripping off its barbed tip.

“You missed the heart,” he heard someone say, and then the tell-tale slide of a knife being unsheathed. Some part of Yeosang dimly understood that they were going to stab him in the back, right through the heart, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to move. He was bleeding out, his brain function already failing – he could smell his own blood, stale and revolting – and he would probably eventually die an immensely undignified death here on the ground even if they didn’t finish him off first.

He thought of turning over, of at least looking his killers in the face before he died, but the significant length of crossbow bolt sticking out of his back put paid to that idea fairly quickly. He wanted Wooyoung to be here, he thought, and every part of him ached at that, wishing that they hadn’t spent most of their last minutes together quarrelling. Had the werewolf understood his feelings, or had he been too cold for even Wooyoung to read?

“Wooyoung,” he whispered, just as a red and silver blur flashed across the corner of his vision. A vicious snarl echoed in his ears, followed by the crunching of bone and the sound of a shot going wide. A man screamed, cut off abruptly by the violent, wet tearing of flesh, and then there was only the rapid, terror-quick beat of Wooyoung’s heart, approaching helter-skelter from behind.

Yeosang closed his eyes tiredly. It was nice to know that he would recognise Wooyoung’s heartbeat anywhere.

“ _Yeosang_ ,” Wooyoung moaned, dragging him upright. Yeosang forced his eyes open, relieved to see Wooyoung’s beloved face above him, even if it was pale and blood-spattered.

Wooyoung hesitated for a moment, indecision flitting across his face before he said, anxious and apologetic, “I’m just gonna – I need to get this out or you won’t heal.” Yeosang was still processing those words when Wooyoung wrenched the bolt out through the front of his chest with a horrible squelching noise, and he screeched with a strength he hadn’t realised he still had, bucking so hard in Wooyoung’s hold that the werewolf almost dropped him.

It didn’t hurt, not really, but to feel cold metal sliding through his body was certainly the most horribly invasive sensation Yeosang had ever felt in his long life.

Propping Yeosang up gently against a tree, Wooyoung disappeared from his view for a moment before he returned dragging the limp corpse of a hunter along behind him, dumping the body unceremoniously onto the vampire’s lap with a muffled _thump_. “Fresh blood,” he said, sounding so painfully hopeful that Yeosang could almost imagine his tail wagging excitedly.

Truthfully, Yeosang didn’t like drinking directly from corpses – without the pumping action of the heart to assist him, it was a colossal waste of energy even on a good day to have to actively suck up blood like he was drinking through a pair of straws – but he was hardly in a position to be picky. It was, however, extremely slow going, and he was fairly sure that he could feel the fresh blood leaking out through the hole in his chest as he kept slurping like a boar without table manners.

“Stop pacing,” he muttered tiredly, raising his gaze to glare at Wooyoung, who froze in his tracks immediately, looking abashed. “I’m fine, I’m not going to keel over and die.” He knew he must look an absolute sight, his body drenched with blood and more dripping gruesomely from his chin.

“You _scared_ me,” Wooyoung said accusingly, not a single iota of amusement on his face as he moved nearer to crouch by Yeosang’s side. “You were just _lying_ there and I thought they’d killed you.” He let out a shuddering breath as he smoothed his hand over Yeosang’s hair, and then down across the vampire’s face and shoulder, his amber eyes shiny with emotion.

“I’m fine,” Yeosang repeated, more gently this time as he reached out for Wooyoung’s blood-smeared hand and squeezed it. “I love you.”

Wooyoung’s answering smile was shaky. “Good,” he said hoarsely as he blinked back tears. “Because I love you too, so much.”

Pushing the bloodless corpse away, Wooyoung hoisted Yeosang securely into his arms and turned for home, his breathing steady despite his slight limp. Tucking his head against Wooyoung’s chest, Yeosang exhaled long and slow, his breathing growing shallower as he listened to the comfortingly strong beat of Wooyoung’s heart against his ear until he finally fell asleep.

It was almost three full days after the attack before Yeosang could drink anything without blood leaking out of his wound, which had apparently carved out part of his oesophagus. He was dangerously grumpy the entire time, both from the constant mess and how long it took to consume enough blood to satisfy him. Wooyoung, on the other hand, seemed to have developed some absurd form of separation anxiety and seemed loathe to let Yeosang out of his sight for even a minute.

“I’m going to kick you out if you don’t stop staring,” Yeosang grumbled as he set down his mug, licking his lips for any remnants of blood he might have missed. He shot Wooyoung a very dirty look as he did so, although it was probably thoroughly unwarranted considering the werewolf was sitting unobtrusively at the dining table with his block of wood and a carving knife in his hands.

Wooyoung gave him an injured pout, puffing his cheeks out as he huffed in protest. “I was only making sure you weren’t going to drip blood everywhere again,” he retorted. All the same, he set his things down and sidled across the cottage to Yeosang’s side, blithely ignoring the vampire’s hiss of annoyance as he tucked himself onto the bed, his arm wrapping about Yeosang’s bare waist.

Yeosang sighed, leaning back and fitting his head snugly against Wooyoung’s shoulder. “You should go out for a run or your wolf is going to go feral next full moon,” he murmured.

Wooyoung shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t help thinking that they might come back. More hunters, another group of them, _something_.”

“Something tells me that whoever ratted me out won’t be doing it again so quickly,” Yeosang sneered, just this side of malicious at the thought. “They watched a group of vampire hunters march off and none of them came back. It’ll give them something to think about.” Yeosang inclined his head slightly to look up at Wooyoung’s face, smiling faintly at the worry lining his forehead.

“Stop thinking so much,” he said reprovingly, patting Wooyoung’s cheek lightly, the movement awkward given his position. “That’s my job. We got rid of them _precisely_ so we wouldn’t have to worry like this.”

“If you say so,” Wooyoung mumbled, burying his nose against the top of Yeosang’s head, his hand slipping just beneath the edge of Yeosang’s pants to rub at his hip, soft and careful.

“Get out of my house, you moron,” Yeosang grunted, arching slightly at Wooyoung’s touch. “You’re making me want to kiss you and I _will_ kill you if I end up reopening my wound.”

Wooyoung giggled at that, as immune to Yeosang’s threats as ever. His mouth trailed from the curve of Yeosang’s ear all the way down to his neck, pressing whisper-light kisses against the sensitive skin there before his mouth closed lightly against the juncture of the vampire’s shoulder. Yeosang shivered, a low whimper leaving his lips at the heat of Wooyoung’s breath against his cool skin. He could feel the firm press of Wooyoung’s teeth against his flesh, just hard enough to leave a mark.

Shaking free, Yeosang twisted around lizard-quick and slammed Wooyoung down onto the bed with a crooked smile, relishing the look of surprise written all over Wooyoung’s face. “I think that’s something I should be doing, isn’t it?” he purred, swinging his leg across Wooyoung’s torso so that he was straddling the werewolf. He pressed a hand to Wooyoung’s chest, feeling a low rumble of excitement vibrate right up his arm.

“Wait,” Wooyoung said quite suddenly, just before Yeosang could lean down. “You know, maybe we should do this another time. I can literally see right through you and it’s – not very pretty.” His mouth made an odd twist of mingled regret and disgust, and Yeosang’s brows furrowed as he looked down at his chest.

“It’s not _my_ fault I got impaled,” he said, achieving a level of sulkiness that he would originally have attributed only to Wooyoung.

Wooyoung grinned, pushing Yeosang gently off him and pressing a kiss to his lips. “I still love you,” he chirped cheerily, before waltzing off the bed and out the door just as he had been directed to earlier. Yeosang glared after him, prodding gingerly at his mostly-dry wound with growing resentment.

In the end, it took the hole in his chest almost a full month to close up, during which time Wooyoung probably made a minor dent in the local rabbit population whilst providing for Yeosang a tad overenthusiastically.

“Look, you have a scar,” Wooyoung said one evening, sounding ludicrously awed as he traced along the uneven whorl of sunken skin just off-centre on Yeosang’s chest. Yeosang blinked at him in amusement, a mug of blood in one hand, feeling decidedly silly with his bare chest twisted slightly towards Wooyoung.

“We’ve both seen it before,” he said dryly, “and it’ll probably disappear eventually anyway.”

“I know! That’s why you have to appreciate it before it’s gone,” Wooyoung said with a grin. “Memories of the day I saved you.” Lunging forward, he clambered excitedly onto Yeosang’s lap, and the vampire managed to set his mug down only a split second before his entire chair toppled backwards, werewolf and all.

“I hate you. Get _off_ me,” Yeosang groaned, shoving Wooyoung off to the side as he clambered to his feet and dragged his chair back upright.

“Yeah, I didn’t think that through,” Wooyoung admitted sheepishly, shaking himself before padding back over to Yeosang’s side and sliding his arms about the vampire’s waist. Yeosang sighed and relaxed slightly, feeling the wet press of Wooyoung’s mouth against the side of his neck, the tiny nips that meandered slowly down to the hard jut of his collarbone.

“Don’t start with that biting thing again,” Yeosang said languidly, his eyes half-lidded. “I’ll bite you back. I really will.”

Wooyoung drew back for a heartbeat, a laugh of surprise sputtering out of him. “You wouldn’t,” he said, but Yeosang could feel the sudden rigidity of his stance, uncertainty colouring his aura.

“Wouldn’t I?” Yeosang murmured coyly, turning to meet Wooyoung’s eyes with a faint curl to his lip. Wooyoung made a choked sort of noise, colour flooding his cheeks, and Yeosang leaned in close without even thinking, lips parting at the sudden rush of blood echoing in his ears. He heard Wooyoung swallow audibly, and then, quite bizarrely, the werewolf tilted his head to the side ever so slightly as if to bare his neck.

“What are you doing?” Yeosang’s eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, his grip tightening on Wooyoung’s shoulder as his gaze fixed on the pulsing vein running the length of the werewolf’s neck.

Wooyoung swallowed again, meeting Yeosang’s gaze with pupils blown wide. “I dunno,” he said hoarsely, sounding almost stunned. “It just suddenly hit me – we should totally try it. You biting me. It could be fun.”

Yeosang raised a brow slowly. “Fun?” he repeated. “I don’t think getting your blood sucked out sounds very _fun_.” But he couldn’t deny that some part of him was perversely tempted – it was a very, very long time since he had fed from a human, and quite honestly there was something about the tangy saltiness of human blood that appealed to him very much indeed.

“Just –” he hesitated, eyeing Wooyoung carefully. “Just a little bit. Don’t be afraid to tell me to stop.”

Wooyoung grinned at that, his eyes sparking dangerously. “I’m not afraid of you,” he scoffed, allowing himself to be manoeuvred backwards until his back hit the wall.

“That’s because you’re a fool,” Yeosang said with a small smile, leaning forward to nip at Wooyoung’s bottom lip. Wooyoung relaxed into the kiss almost immediately, his hands coming to rest against the small of Yeosang’s back so that he could pull the vampire closer.

Ever so slowly, once he heard Wooyoung’s heartrate even out, Yeosang pulled away, sucking his way unhurriedly down Wooyoung’s neck in the way the werewolf so enjoyed doing to him. “It’s okay,” he murmured, feeling the skittish rise and fall of Wooyoung’s chest against his. He stroked lightly along the length of Wooyoung’s torso – once, twice, and then he sank his fangs into that deliciously throbbing vein in a single quick motion.

Wooyoung jerked against him with a cut-off gasp, his grip on Yeosang’s waist suddenly bruisingly hard. Yeosang took a tentative pull, eyes sliding shut as the first trickle of blood slid down his throat, vivid and delightful. There was something of the wild in Wooyoung’s blood, he realised, something not quite fully human that made it that much more exquisite on the tongue. He took another long draw, savouring the flavour as it went down.

He paused then, feeling the rapid pulse of Wooyoung’s heart thrumming through him, waiting for – _something_. But Wooyoung remained silent, his breathing loud and shaky, although his hands were no longer attempting to crush Yeosang’s waist into half.

On his third swallow, Wooyoung moaned quietly, a quivering sound of what sounded very much like pleasure that set every hair on Yeosang’s body on end. Unnerved as he was, he couldn’t quite resist pulling a last gulp of blood from the vein before retracting his fangs slowly. The moment he pulled free, he clamped his mouth back down over the two puncture holes, lapping slowly at the blood flowing from the fresh wounds while Wooyoung seemed to sag against him.

“That was…weird,” Wooyoung said slowly, his voice curiously distant. “I could literally feel my blood leaving my body. I don’t know if I really _liked_ it. I think I might have, actually.”

Yeosang made a muffled noise of disbelief from where he was still licking at Wooyoung’s neck like some sort of oversized leech.

Wooyoung shrugged, jostling Yeosang somewhat violently. “Maybe it was nice because it was you,” he decided, and once again Yeosang could only marvel at Wooyoung’s unusual ability to brush off the most vexing problems with the most casual conclusions.

“You are _so_ strange,” he muttered, finally pulling away with a last lick of his lips, turning to look at Wooyoung in bemused wonder.

Wooyoung beamed, pushing his way into an embrace and nuzzling against Yeosang’s neck. “But you love me,” he said, perfectly self-assured.

“But I love you,” Yeosang agreed with a roll of his eyes.

Wooyoung was quiet for a moment, just leaning against Yeosang, his breathing deep and steady before he finally spoke. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, his tone careful enough that Yeosang immediately leaped to alertness, his head cocking slightly to the side, “of going home.”

Yeosang blinked at that unexpected statement, too staggered at first to even react. “Oh,” was all he responded with blankly, as Wooyoung lifted his head to meet Yeosang’s eyes. Wooyoung looked eager, hopeful even, and not at all as if he had just dropped an announcement of monumental proportions on top of Yeosang like it was nothing. Yeosang dropped his gaze to the two fresh red marks stark against the side of Wooyoung’s neck and felt slightly sick.

“Yeosang?” Wooyoung said hesitantly, reaching out to lace their fingers together, his palm warm and comforting. “If you don’t want to go you can just say so.”

Yeosang’s mouth opened stupidly in realisation. “Oh,” he repeated, flabbergasted. “ _Oh_. So _I’m_ going to meet your family?”

Wooyoung laughed, his brows raising. “I mean, only if you want to,” he said, leaning in close to peer at Yeosang’s expression. “You didn’t look very keen for a moment there.”

Yeosang shook his head, blinking rapidly. “No, I – I was just surprised,” he said hastily, too embarrassed to admit that he had thought Wooyoung was dumping him right after getting bitten by Yeosang. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind. I haven’t been out of the area in a while – but what about all that exploring that you said you wanted to do?” He waved his hand about vaguely; even in his long memory, the first time he had met Wooyoung felt like forever ago now.

Something in Wooyoung’s face softened, the curve of his lips and the smile in his eyes relaxing. “I always felt like there was something missing in my life, you know? That’s why I left home – I wanted to see what was out there, what I might be missing out on.” His voice was soft, wistful in a way that made Yeosang ache inside. “But then _you_ happened. They always say that whatever you lost ends up being in the last place you look, but it’s really that I stopped looking after I found you.”

Yeosang could find no response to that for a long time. He only stood there, his hand in Wooyoung’s, trying and failing to blink the wetness out of his eyes while Wooyoung laughed and patted at his cheeks, looking distinctly teary-eyed himself.

“You make me happy,” Yeosang said at last, wanting Wooyoung to know that he meant every word from the depths of his unbeating heart. “Before you came into my life, I was satisfied. I was content with my home and my garden. There was nothing I wanted and nothing I lacked. You gave me – light. You came and you added absolutely nothing to my life but brightness, and you made me realise that with you, I was happy.”

Wooyoung let out a choked-sounding wail at that, throwing himself back into Yeosang’s arms. “You’re going to make me cry,” he complained, his voice muffled against Yeosang’s shoulder.

“Well, it’s not like you haven’t done the same to me,” Yeosang said snippily, but he rested a hand gently against Wooyoung’s back all the same.

They passed one more full moon together before preparing to leave for Seoul just before winter set in, largely because Wooyoung decided that he very much wanted to make a journey through snow. “I’ve never done that before. It’ll be fun,” he insisted, which made Yeosang snort sceptically, considering the werewolf pretty much used that word to describe almost everything anyway.

“It’ll be cold for you,” Yeosang pointed out, and Wooyoung paused for a moment.

“Well, I’ll have fur,” he said decisively, and Yeosang sighed in surrender. What Wooyoung wanted, Wooyoung usually got, and Yeosang really didn’t care enough to try to change that fact.

There was little enough that needed to be done around the cottage before they left – Yeosang had always kept a sparse house, and Wooyoung, lacking both an artistic eye and the patience to take up interior design, had never done much to spruce it up. He did, however, tuck the two wooden figurines on the windowsill into his pack, right alongside the oddly-shaped, bow-legged creature that Wooyoung had painstakingly carved for him, quite unrecognisable as anything humanoid, much less as Yeosang himself.

Anything else, Yeosang thought dispassionately as he swept a quick glance around, could be replaced easily enough once they got back.

Wooyoung bounded up to him as he stepped out of his cottage for the last time in what would probably be at least a few months, the longest Yeosang had left his home in decades. Quickly pushing Wooyoung’s head away from his own face before the wolf could give him a lick in greeting, Yeosang buried his fingers in the thick fur of Wooyoung’s neck as they made their way over to the garden near the back of the cottage.

A small segment had been added to the original plot, standing empty until the warmer months, when they would be able to grow some of Wooyoung’s favourite herbs and spices. For now, there were only two rows of cabbages left sitting on the dirt, a final harvest that they would sell off in town before beginning their journey. Wooyoung made a snuffling noise at the sight, and Yeosang could tell that some part of the wolf very much wanted to do some digging right then.

Eventually, with a huff of disappointment, Wooyoung shook himself before beginning to shrink before Yeosang’s eyes. Quickly twisting about to retrieve Wooyoung’s thick winter cloak from his stuffed pack, Yeosang swung it over the werewolf’s bare form before clasping it securely at his neck.

“Come on, let’s get this done so we can leave,” he said, squeezing Wooyoung’s shoulder lightly. He could almost feel the werewolf’s anticipation thrumming through the air, an excitement that had been building steadily over the past weeks.

“Isn’t this cute?” Wooyoung said cheerfully as he sawed vigorously through the base of a particularly large cabbage. “This is exactly how we met back then, remember?”

Yeosang narrowed his eyes, the corner of his mouth twisting sardonically at the memory. “This isn’t quite _exactly_ how I remember us meeting,” he muttered. “You were much more annoying at the time.”

Wooyoung scoffed. “I’ve always been like this. You’ve just gotten used to me, that’s all,” he said, so perfectly sensibly that Yeosang was momentarily taken aback. “Also, you fell in love with me, so there’s that.” He grinned, teeth flashing brightly in the dim evening light.

“Shut up or I’ll throw this cabbage at you,” Yeosang threatened, brandishing the vegetable in his hand fiercely. “I really will do it.”

Wooyoung’s grin widened even further. “Come on, you’ve said it before. It’s not like you loving me is anything new,” he said airily. “Anyway, not that it’s a competition or anything, but _I’m_ the one who loved you first.”

Yeosang shot Wooyoung an incredulous look. He couldn’t quite believe that he was kneeling in the dirt having possibly the most inane conversation of his life with a werewolf while harvesting cabbages. It felt like the oddest of fever-dreams, and one that he supposed he didn’t mind never waking up from.

“Damn wolf,” he grumbled under his breath. Across from him, Wooyoung laughed – and everything was just as perfect as it could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was truly so much fun to write, and I hope it was fun to read as well（＾ω＾）


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